


Less than Kind

by Vitreous_Humor



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angelic Mythology, Angst, Churches & Cathedrals, Crying, Day drinking, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Nephilim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 03:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19984993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: “In the old days, things were... little less decided than they are now. The rules were, oh, a mess, and there have always been those who like to find loopholes and such. Ways through. Ways to do as they liked. And what some of the angels in Heaven liked was to... walk among humans. Listen to them. Love them.”“Fuck us,” Will said shortly, and the angel looked down.“There was love involved. That at least I can promise you.”“I worked homicide in New Orleans,” Will said. “I know what love does.”***Aziraphale and Will have a talk about troubled family relationships. Follows "Such an Old-Fashioned Word" but it's not strictly necessary to read that one first.





	Less than Kind

Sometime around dawn, Will pried himself out of Hannibal's arms, dressed, and slipped out of the flat.

Thanks to Hannibal's drawings, both the carefully rendered pieces from his office and the wilder charcoal drawings he had done almost compulsively on the ship between Maine and Italy, Will found himself unusually easy in Florence. The shadowy plazas and narrow alleys were as familiar to him as the waterways around Wolf Trap, and whenever he expected to find a restaurant, a bakery, a money-changer or a bookstore around a particular corner, it was more often than not there.

Florence, wrapped in ancient enmity and old blood, seemed to welcome him as one more secret walking her streets, one more sin added to a very long list.

“This place lives inside me,” Hannibal said to him one night. “It would not surprise me if you had caught it from me, like some kind of contagion of the blood.”

Will might have protested, but he had caught worse from Hannibal than geography. The more time he spent with Hannibal, the more he had learned to follow this kind of fairy tale logic, even if it was the kind of fairy tale that was saved for long after the kids went to bed.

_Where else do two monsters get to run off and live happily ever after?_

Florence had room for them, the single city opening in a way that made the whole of the United States seem claustrophobic. Will had spent weeks trying to talk to Hannibal about extradition treaties, false names, maybe even some kind of plastic surgery, but Hannibal only smiled that slight and adoring smile.

“You worry too much, Will. I will take care of us.”

And somehow, he had. Jack stayed at Quantico, Alana and Margot kept their distance in some cold mountain stronghold, and their other enemies were fallen or forgotten. Hannibal had said- _promised_ \- that as long as Will was with him, the others could keep as they were, so long as they made no move against them.

The threat was there, not that Hannibal would be more than happy to act in self-defense, but that Will was the only thing preventing fire from raining down on the deserving and the undeserving alike.

Will kept walking.

He walked a lot. After the fall, after his face healed up, all he wanted to do anymore was walk the streets, lose himself in the summer crowds and the roar of this city that had somehow come to be his. Hannibal had set himself up neatly as a visiting curator on loan from the Hungarian National Museum, spending his days in the restoration labs at the Uffizi and his nights wining and dining with the city's artistic elite.

The hours between midnight and dawn were theirs however, and as the morning rain started, Will realized that he could still feel the places where Hannibal had touched him last night under his clothes, a vicious claiming bite on his shoulder, scratches on his back that felt more like they were made with claws than with nails.

The religion that Will had grown up with was the old-fashioned kind, salvation and damnation, fire and brimstone. However, looking up at the enormous paintings of Lucifer rising and Lucifer falling at the Uffizi, hearing Hannibal's soft and delighted laugh in his ear, he knew that an old-fashioned demon could do very well for himself in the new world, and at night, he held Hannibal's hand a little tighter.

Will walked, but the rain grew harder, and at last he gave it up, seeking shelter on the stone doorstep of a small church set a little back from the street.

_Salvation,_ he thought absently. _Salva me, sana me, domine._

Hannibal had taught him that, and he hadn't needed to bother with a translation.

“If you are seeking entry, my dear, I am afraid the priest is gone to Grassino. Visiting his sister until Saturday, I believe.”

“No, just a dry spot,” Will said, turning to the other man on the doorstep. “I don't think I get on with religion much any more.”

“Oh, who does, really?”

The speaker was a gently-rounded gentleman with a shock of nearly-white hair, dressed in clothes that suggested white without being so. A little taller than Will and better fed by far, he gave an immediate impression of being an English tourist, intelligent and gayer than-

_No. No. That's what he wants you to see._

Will fell back a step, back into the rain, staring at the speaker as he realized that he hadn't seen anyone walk up, would have passed right on by if the doorstep hadn't been empty. His heart was beating fast, he had bitten his tongue so hard he tasted blood, and he had nothing to defend himself with, not even a knife, why would he, he had been leaving that to Hannibal for-

“Darling. Oh my darling. I'm so _sorry.”_

The words didn't mean anything. He had been hearing those words all his life, but the feeling behind them beat at him like enormous wings, stunning him with their force. It wasn't only sympathy but sorrow, grief, and regret, and he staggered underneath it. His eyes stung with saltwater and now the man was out from the doorstep, close enough that Will could smell the his cologne, something warm, floral and leather with a hint of wood ash.

_Hannibal would approve,_ Will thought wildly.

“Please... may I help you?”

Will used to know the answer to that. It was no. It had been no since he was a child in Chicago, a teen in Biloxi, since he was shot in the line of duty in New Orleans. Then had come Hannibal, and maybe that was a bigger change than everything else inside him.

“Yes,” Will said, and with a soft comforting hum, the man helped him into the church, opening the door that had apparently never been locked in the first place.

The stranger ignored the small cramped pews and instead walked to the wide steps leading up to the altar. With surprising strength, he settled Will on the lowest step and came to sit primly by his side, neat as a pin except for the fact that he did not let go of Will's hand, and Will, for some reason, didn't want him to.

“There, that's a little better, isn't it?”

Will started to say yes, but as he turned to look at the man fully, a bolt of pain split his head and he saw...

A smiling man in a Soho bookstore where no books were sold. English, intelligent and gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Fussy, particular, harmless.

A broad-winged angel on a wall who should have had a flaming sword but didn't, and the titanic snake that coiled at his feet.

Four enormous winged wheels, their rims beaded with eyes, spinning endlessly in vast space, and without a mouth singing the great names of God, _holy, holy, holy._

He saw too much, and he crumpled in on himself, pressing his palms to his eyes.

_Finally happened,_ he thought. _A teacup so shattered that not even Hannibal could put it back together. Won't that irritate him..._

Then there were cool hands on his head, lips pressed right against the place where his head ached the most, and all of that went away, leaving him shockingly sane. He gasped at the relief, and then he grabbed at the man's wrists, pulling back to stare.

The images he had seen were still there, like the ghosts of bright lights in the dark, but now they all resolved to the man sitting in front of him, a soft sad smile on his face, uncaring how tightly Will hung on to him. Self-consciously, Will let him go.

“Aren't you meant to start with something like _be not afraid?”_ he asked.

The angel tilted his head.

“Would it have made a difference?”

Will barked a laugh.

“No. No, you're right. So what is this? A social call? Going to tell me that Hannibal's mad, bad and dangerous to know? Because, wow, am I just beyond that one...”

“No... No, this is more of a... let's say, family call. And an apology.”

Will considered.

“I think I'm going to need to be at least a little drunk for this.”

The angel nodded, and reached inside his coat, pulling out an unopened bottle of Talisker whisky.

“Will this do?”

Okay. The previous shocks had cushioned him against this new little miracle, allowing him to simply nod and enjoy the whisky, sipped from the two glass tumblers the angel pulled from his jacket.

“You're some magician,” he commented, and the angel sighed.

“Well, _I_ think so, but there are plenty who would argue.”

They sipped quietly for a little while as the rain pattered on the church roof, and sooner than he would have thought likely, Will decided he was ready for more.

“Are you going to tell me about my mom?”

“Pardon?”

“Mom disappeared when I was too young to remember. I knew my dad's folks, and there's nothing like you in the family tree.”

“I could tell you about your mother if you like, but your legacy is... well. Humanity's.”

“Hang on.”

Will took another sip of his whisky.

“All right. Keep going.”

“What do you know about the nephilim?'

“Absolutely nothing at all.”

The angel hummed a little, and Will realized that he wasn't hearing it with his ears, or at least, not the ears on his head. This hum went straight to something in him, something that ached at that familiarity.

“In the old days, things were... little less decided than they are now. The rules were, oh, a mess, and there have always been those who like to find loopholes and such. Ways through. Ways to do as they liked. And what some of the angels in Heaven liked was to... walk among humans. Listen to them. Love them.”

“Fuck us,” Will said shortly, and the angel looked down.

“There was love involved. That at least I can promise you.”

“I worked homicide in New Orleans,” Will said. “I know what _love_ does.”

“I know you do.”

The angel fiddled with his glass for a moment, and then continued.

“And there were, in time, the nephilim. Giants in the earth, heroes and world-shakers. They slew dragons, they changed the course of rivers. They possessed from their angel parent a... divine spark, let's say, and over time, that spark was divided over and over again.”

“Bred out.”

“If it was a human thing, it would have been, but it wasn't. It stayed in the line of Eve, sometimes infinitesimally small, sometimes greater.”

“That's not how DNA works.”

“No. This is was before all that.”

“...All right. So what does that mean for me?”

“It means that against all odds, against all statistical probability... Well. Here you are. The closest thing to a perfect nephilim that's walked the world since before the flood.”

Will looked at him.

“Still not drunk enough for this.”

The angel smiled a little.

“You can try. I'll take care of the hangover, if you like.”

Will laughed at that, a surprised sound that echoed through the church.

“So... what the hell am I supposed to do with this? Got a dragon for me to fight, or a world for me to end or something?”

“No, darling. You've already done that.”

Will suddenly felt very cold and very sober. Somehow, he knew that this polite angel wasn't talking about Francis Dolarhyde or any of the others.

“Oh.”

He realized he was hunched down, arms wrapped around himself, like he used to sit as a kid before he realized it made him look like a target. He straightened up self-consciously.

“So then, why are you here? I served my purpose, didn't I?”

“Because...a mistake was made- _we_ made a mistake with the nephilim. Heaven called them an abomination, an embarrassment, something that should never have happened...”

“Big surprise,” Will snapped. He wished he sounded a little harder about it, but he had been in foster off and on for almost a decade. Some things rang bells until they deafened.

“We never called them what they were. Our children.”

Will gritted his teeth, and the small split in his tongue from when he had bitten it earlier opened again. He tasted blood, which, appropriate enough.

“I am _not_ a child.”

“No. But... you're what children are the metaphor _for._ Ours. Our charges. Our responsibilities that we never took responsibility for. And, darling, I am so, so sorry for that.”

People tried to lie to Will all the time. He never liked it, but it was better than this. This was more than truth, it was the opposite of a lie, and he shook with it. It was every _sorry_ he had ever been owed and never got, every moment when he should have had love and didn't get it, and God, oh God, but it _hurt._

The glass hit the ground and shattered, and no one was going to put it back together. He pressed his hands against his head, desperate for it to end, and at the same time soaking it in like desert ground did rain, because he needed it so badly he could cry. He _was_ crying, and then the angel's arms were around him, holding him tightly to a body that smelled like cologne and old books and snuffed matches, and that humming was louder now, desperately comforting.

_I'm sorry, even if the rest of them aren't. I'm sorry, we were wrong. We were wrong. We should have been there for you, but we weren't, and oh, darling, I have missed you, missed you so much, I-_

“Say it,” Will croaked. “ _Say_ it, if you can, please...”

“I love you,” the angel said, and the doors blew off the church with a boom.

Will looked up to see Hannibal stalking down the aisle, and if he had ever had any doubts, they were gone now. Hannibal wore the shape of a man, but he wasn't one, and the thing he was loomed dark, antlered and dangerous in a space that Will was pretty sure humans shouldn't be able to see. His hands were empty, but that had never mattered, and his mouth was full of teeth.

“Mine,” he said in a growl that sent echoes through the nave. “Mine, and you will not-”

“Hey!” Will said, in the tone he used when he still had dogs. “Hey, quit.”

Hannibal stopped just short of where they sat at the alter, and after a moment, he put his hands down and pulled a more calm seeming over his fury.

“Will, come here,” he said, his voice a nearly human growl. “That man is not as he appears.”

“Neither are you,” Will retorted, not stirring from the angel's arms. “Neither am I.”

Hannibal turned his dark gaze to the angel, who seemed, against all logic and good sense, immune to the violence pouring off of him.

“I remember you now,” he said coldly. “I won't forget you again.”

“I'm sure you won't,” the angel said calmly. “Have you tried the anginetti at Paolo's yet?”

Will laughed, aware that there was a slightly hysterical note to it. He felt as if he had been tossed up in the air and somehow forgotten which way was down.

“Hannibal... Hannibal, we have to get along. This man is... wait, what's your name?”

“Aziraphale.”

“Aziraphale's _family_.”

“ _Not_ mine,” Hannibal said, but he looked just a little uncertain now, his gaze roving from Will's face to Aziraphale's.

Hannibal's memory palace was beyond enormous, and Will thought that there was, perhaps, locked in the dungeon under the sleeping coils of dragons and traps that would snare even Hannibal himself if he ventured down, something not unlike what Will had been feeling his entire life, that the angel had answered.

Well. That was certainly something to think about, though not now.

“You can always find me if you want me,” the angel said. He started to pull away but Will clung to him, unwilling to let go after having gone so long without.

“I don't want to leave you,” Will whispered, and he could feel the monstrous tide rising up from from Hannibal and the devastating grief as well. He wanted to tell Hannibal that he wouldn't abandon something he had made. He wasn't an angel, after all.

“It's all right, dear,” the angel murmured, stroking his hair. “It will be fine.”

That wasn't an absolute truth, but he offered it as a comfort, and Will would take it.

“Hannibal?”

“ _Yes_ , Will?” Hannibal said, and he sounded almost sulky now. There would be Words about this later, that tone promised, and maybe some biting, but those were going to happen anyway, and Will had fallen through fear into something that felt new and somehow free. It was fine. He had forgotten how to fall.

“Hannibal, I want to kiss him. Can I?”

He could feel the shock go through both of them, angel and demon alike.

_Ha, and that's the human coming out._

“Er.”

“I shall allow it,” Hannibal said with great dignity, and everyone ignored the different kind of hunger that rose up in him, a lambent fascination with whatever heresy they were currently committing.

Will turned to Aziraphale, his grip loosening enough so he could touch the angel's lapel where there was an odd decoration, a pin in the shape of a coiled snake.

“Can I?” he repeated, his voice husky, and he watched fascinated as a blush rose up from the angel's collar.

“I shouldn't think anyone could deny you if you asked like that,” he said softly, and Will smiled. Half angel, maybe, and half of Eve as well. He loved apples.

Will leaned in, hands chastely on the angel's shoulders, brushing his lips gently across Aziraphale's. There was a spark of something strange there, something hotter than the cradle that kindled stars, a glimpse into something too powerful to contemplate. Then Aziraphale sighed, mouth opening slightly, and that wildness pulled back before it overwhelmed him.

Aziraphale kept his hands folded in his lap, submissive to Will's touch, and Will shifted closer, raking one hand through Aziraphale's hair. Aziraphale tasted good but not quite human, he realized. There was something that made Will think of sweetness and the seashore, and he chased it, deepening the kiss until he was knelt up and over the angel, pressed against him and nuzzling into his open mouth.

“Will,” Hannibal said, a warning in his voice, and Will pulled back, licking his lips where it seemed a trace of something foreign and divine lingered.

Aziraphale looked stunned, eyes wide and lips red. He reached up to touch his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and stood up, dusting his clothes off needlessly.

“Well.”

Hannibal inclined his head with mock courtesy.

“Well, indeed.”

Will climbed to his feet, stretching out the stiffness in his legs. He had no idea how long he had spent in the church.

“Did you know? That I'm apparently half angel?”

Hannibal's chin dropped slightly, eyes widening just a fraction before he composed himself. For him, it was as good as a jaw drop.

“All right. Good. I would have been pretty mad if you knew and never told me.”

He glanced at Aziraphale.

“I don't know what I'm going to do. With any of this.”

The angel shrugged.

“You needn't do anything about it. It is your choice.”

“Be grateful,” Hannibal said, his voice a little strange. “The ability to choose what you will do with your nature is not something that is given to everyone.”

“No, it is not,” the angel agreed, and Hannibal looked at him curiously.

“Angel of the Eastern Gate. You were strange to begin with, and you have grown stranger still.”

Something flashed across the angel's face. Will caught sorrow and pride in equal measures, defiance, acceptance, and so much love that it hurt. The next moment it was all folded away, neat as a dinner set into a magician's hat, and Will shook it off.

“We're none of us what we once were,” Aziraphale said. “That's the gift this world has given us, the ability to change and to become something else. Something that suits us better.”

Will didn't think he deserved the opaque glance that Hannibal gave him.

“Perhaps. We shall see. “

Hannibal straightened, and suddenly looked entirely human, affable, intelligent, foreign and queer. He smiled, offering his hand to Aziraphale, who took it without a second thought.

“Thank you for keeping Will company while he sheltered from the rain,” he said. “I will be sure to stop at Paolo's to try to the anginetti.”

Aziraphale beamed, a friendly English tourist pleased to find a kindred spirit so far from home. They were both good performances, Will thought, and for the moment he enjoyed them instead of peeking under the bed for the monsters.

“Oh, do. They're a delight. It was a pleasure running into you and your young man again.”

Hannibal turned to Will.

“Breakfast at Le Livre?”

“The place with the almost-beignets? Yeah, sounds good.”

As they left, Will glanced back to see that the angel had turned to the altar, one foot on the step as if he wanted to approach, head bowed as if he wasn't sure he was allowed. If he could have the conversation that he had with Will and then with Hannibal, angel or not, religion might be a very dicey subject indeed.

Outside, the rain had slowed down to soft patter. They walked into the drizzle, letting the morning crowd carry them along.

“Not so long ago, I would have eaten him whole, and left no memory of him in the world.”

“Would you still do that now?”

“Now he is too interesting. And... he was kind to you.”

Will didn't say that not so long ago, that would have put the angel in more danger than almost anything else. He didn't. They were different now. They were allowed to be.

Le Livre had once been a bookshop, and the small space was made tighter by the walls packed with old books. As they ate, almost-beignets for Will and a black truffle omelet for Hannibal, the rain stopped. A pale sunlight filled the air, and on impulse, Will tilted his head, listening with a place he hadn't been aware existed inside him until an hour ago.

After a moment, he could hear a faint sweet hum, and he closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> *That lips against the worst point of the headache really works, actually. 
> 
> *This seemed as good a reason for Will's empathy as anything else. 
> 
> *Not... quite sure I struck a good balance between Hannibal and Good Omens, but I'm not sure I can. 
> 
> *Will's hard to write. Unpredictable, to say the least. Still not sure I got it right, but it can stand 'til I know how to do better. 
> 
> *Wow, I got a long way before I used Aziraphale's name. 
> 
> *Who doesn't want Aziraphale to pet our hair?
> 
> *Performative submission. It's a trip.


End file.
